


Fire

by quicksilvering



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, POV First Person, Past Abuse, Poetic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 09:18:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3405362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quicksilvering/pseuds/quicksilvering
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cole thinks about the people who have hurt him, the people who have helped him, and how he got to where he is now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fire

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first thing I've ever posted to a public site so opinions on very highly welcome. I've always had the headcanon that Rhys and Evangeline may have abused Cole while he was with them. I hope it's okay.

It felt like fire.

It crackled and burned and hollowed my insides with every word they said, every strike of a closed fist, fall to the ground, slipping and standing and out of breath. They said they loved me. I loved them. I still do. It’s wrong, I’m wrong, it screams at me from the inside. 

They hurt me. They covered me in gasoline and set me on fire and smiled at the flames, and I loved them for it.

“We’re the only ones who will ever love you,” harsh words growled into my ears, grab my hair, throw me to the floor, “you need us to survive,” I do. I do. I do. I do. Please let me stay I’m sorry, I do.

I wanted to help.

I could see them, hunching cowering, shivering, shaking in the stale stench of war. Mages, magic men and women, dark deep inside. They said they wished they would die, so I helped. I gave them what they wanted. I’m sorry. I thought it was right but it’s wrong like blood on flowers in a stolen garden.

They didn’t know. The two who let me burn didn’t know what I was. Even I’m not sure what I am. I am Cole, but he is not me. He was sad and hungry and alone, so I held his hand, and I became him. Lord Seeker Lambert called me a demon. It made the two I had given myself for spit in anger. They called me “it”, a creature, a monster. So I put a dagger to his throat and told him to look into my eyes. 

Then they left me, still smoldering, screaming, searching. They left me in the cold and they did not care. 

But now it is not cold.

Now my burns have been soothed with gentle words and smiles, invitations to games of wicked grace and food slipped under tables.

Rhys and Evangeline told me that they loved me, but they made me do things. Things that make my stomach burn and the tears come back and remember the feeling of dead flesh in my hands. I do not like those feelings. They are the bad feelings and I do not want them.

But these people, they tell me to call them family. The warm smiles and embraces hide the hurt in their hearts. They hurt like me. But we make the hurt better for each other. They do not push, pull, punch until it is broken and shattered and loveless. They give me small words of encouragement and pour water over my flames, gently and one by one.

For once in my life, I can feel things in my chest that are my own.

Feelings that come from me, not just those around me. Sadness, deep like a chasm, and anger that makes my hands shake and reach for blades. But there is something in there, alongside the hurt, and it is bright like the stars on a moonless night, glittering pearls of hope so impossibly far away.

It is warm and bright and full of emotions that I fear I have never felt.

My family tells me it is happiness, and for once, I smile.


End file.
